5 Key Connections That Drive Small Business Success
There are five business relationships every entrepreneur should establish and nurture for building reputation, spreading business awareness, and getting more customers. By forging these key connections, businesses owners will gain access to additional knowledge and resources that will move their businesses forward.
1. Neighboring Small Businesses
Eighty percent of small business customers come from a five-miles radius around your business. Therefore, your next customer is most likely located close by and engaging with other business owners right around the corner from you. Connecting with these business owners and building meaningful relationships unlocks access to each other’s customers. The more neighboring businesses know about you and your business (and the more you learn about them), the more word-of-mouth referrals you're likely to get.
Take Action: Reach out and connect with at least one new business owner each month. Start the conversation by asking about their backgrounds and businesses, and then share what you do. The more interest you show in their businesses, the more interested they will become in yours.
2. People Recommending You
A special relationship exists when people put their reputations on the line and recommend your business. Make sure you identify who your "fans" are and that you nurture your relationships with them. Typically these people include both customers and other local business owners. While nurturing relationships with existing customers is pretty well understood and acted upon, relationships with other business owners are often left to chance.
Take Action: Identify businesses that you would be willing to recommend, and that would also recommend you to others. On a monthly basis, share something about your business (a featured product or service, or an upcoming event or promotion you’re running) that other business owners can easily share with others, and invite them to do the same with you.
3. Local Leaders
Every community has a few business owners who just seem to have a knack for getting things done. They know the right person at town hall to call to expedite approvals, the best sources for part-time help, and the banker/accountant real estate agent in town who does the best job at serving the needs of small businesses. Having these business owners in your circle of connections unlocks access to vast local knowledge and resources, saving you time and money.
Take Action: Identifying and connecting with these individuals requires a little detective work and a proactive effort to get them in your circle of connections. Ask all your connections who they turn to for meaningful advice, and look for instances where the same person is mentioned multiple times. These are the types of individuals where a referral from someone they already know and trust goes a long way. They also are usually highly involved in the community, so check out who is organizing larger local events or meetups. Then figure out which of your connections has the best relationship, and ask them to make an introduction on your behalf.
4. Industry Leaders
Successful business owners typically welcome the opportunity to help each other out and have a lot to gain by having a network of peers they can turn to. That’s why there are so many local and national groups for specific industries. In the early days of Alignable, we were approached by a cupcake store owner in Tampa, Florida, who wanted us to connect her with other cupcake stores across the country. She was looking for advice on flour providers, and wanted to ask others in her industry for advice. We found over 150 cupcake stores on Alignable at the time, so we created an industry group just for them to share ideas and insights on an ongoing basis.
Take Action: Either join an industry group or do some Google searching to find business owners in your industry you can connect with.
5. Trusted Advisors
Small business owners are constantly bombarded on the phone and in person by sales people pitching the latest website, payment processing, accounting, social media, or advertising media for their businesses. Having a trusted network of other small business owners you can turn to for advice on what actually works is priceless. In one local community in Texas, we recently observed a small business owner ask:
“I just received a little square device in the mail from a company called Square. Does anyone know what this thing is?”
Shortly thereafter, one of their connections replied,
“It’s for payment processing… I use it all the time at the farmers market–stop by and I will show you how it works.”
Take Action: Don’t go it alone when dealing with the onslaught of salespeople. If you come across a product or service you feel might be beneficial for your business, validate it by asking other business owners for their opinion. Small business owners love to help each other out. We’ve seen incredible discussions on topics ranging from low cost marketing ideas for a struggling florist to over 600 ideas on how to make the most of dealing with Yelp.
Accessing the knowledge and resources of other business owners is critical for small business success. Print out this post and challenge yourself each week to make at least one new meaningful connection.
Want to share your story about a connection that helped move your business forward? Email it to me and I’ll share it with other small business owners across North America on Alignable.
